Hi Andrew: I am sweetly flattered by your take on the value of the anthology
of Ghost Walks currently on my blog site!!
> Stephen - I was going to comment b/c, because we have been 'talking'
> of walks b/c, but why? I want to know how long it took you to write
> those poems 'on the hoof'? And were they written in response to the
> sensory data at the time or in response to those great photographs? Or
> both?
In my walks with the camera I normally just follow my eye - as if there are
magnets in the environment I am drawn to x, y or z configuration. (A
scratched up poster, grafitti or stencil art in an odd juxtposition to some
other objects, a homeless person swelling up the contour of a pale blue
'comforter' on the green grass on a hill in the morning park, etc.) These
visual configurations are the provocateurs for the 'improvisation' of a
text.
Yes, on one level the graphic is similar to a note in a jazz performance
that acts as a catalyst for what what comes falling down the chute. Or,
maybe also similarly, to theatrical improv where the sheer theatricality of
the visual configuration compels a 'quick ass' kind of response - at least,
I get into sometimes on that kind of level, or, other times, I will let my
mind roll around for a few days before get the words together. But the
writing is usually kind of fast. It's like the text (political, aesthetic,
psychological, etc.) has been already sitting inside me and waiting for the
right visual to jerk it out into life!
But really the form is hard to fully into one consistent definition of
approach. The work here was probably also assisted by a lot of other things
were going on in the season, weather, etc. It's a kind of work that comes
and goes with me.
It is fun to do and I am glad you like it.
Stephen
> Your sheer inventiveness is dazzling. Not only what you write, but
> your imaginative eye - from political to personal, empathetic
> extension to literary allusion, you're open to all impulses ... It
> must be all the walking that keeps you open to 'the winds of change',
> makes you able to pin down the impulse of the moment in specific
> images like that.
> Good stuff - Thanks for drawing our attention to it.
>
> Androo
>
> On 12/05/07, Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>>
>> Currently on my blog is a little sequence of "Ghost Walks" (photographs and
>> texts) that I presented for the 'Walking Panel' at Poets House this past
>> Friday.
>> At the moment, I am working on a piece on the Saturday walk, tentatively
>> entitled, with a tip of the hat to Lisa Robertson, "Soft Architecture meets
>> SOHO, Chinatown & Tribeca." For those interested, more of that later!
>>
>> In fact, more on my new book, Walking Theory (Junction Press), also later.
>>
>> Stephen Vincent
>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>>
>
|